Lost in Space (1998 Movie)
Lost in Space was a feature film based on the original television series, reimagining the adventures of the Robinson Family on a reimagined Jupiter 2. It opened in the United States on April 3, 1998 to mixed reactions from Lost in Space fans, who often criticized the many changes made to the original concept and continuity. Nevertheless, it spawned a universe of its own with several spinoff books, although the planned sequel was never produced. 'Synopsis' In the year 2058, Earth is an environmental disaster. It is estimated that within 20 years the planet will be unable to support human life. The United Global Space Force initiates the Jupiter Mission. A family will be sent to the nearest habitable planet, Alpha Prime, where they will build a Hyper Gate enabling the people of Earth to evacuate safely. Unfortunately, the Global Sedition has hired Dr. Zachary Smith to sabotage the mission. Smith sneaks aboard the Jupiter 2 and programs the mission Robot to destroy the Robinson Family 16 hours into their voyage while they slumber in cryo-stasis. Smith is betrayed by the Global Sedition who render him unconscious while still aboard the Jupiter 2. Smith wakes minutes before the Robot begins its task. He is now stranded with the Robinsons and the damage the Robot does to the ship renders the travelers lost in space. 'Movie Summary' The time is 30 September A.D. 2058, and though most people have not been officially told it, the Earth is dying of environmental pollution; the recycling technologies were perfected too late. The Earth is also at relative peace between governments, but terrorism is the chief enemy. A force known as Global Sedition employs various illegal technologies, has operatives that are genetically engineered, and has rough technological parity. As the movie opens, Sedition spacecraft engage in a dogfight with two united world spacecraft, one of which is piloted by Major Donald West (Matt LeBlanc). They defeat the Sedition spacecraft, but West's flying partner Jeb Walker (Lennie James) is out of control, headed for a collision with the hyperspace gate that is nearing completion. West conducts an unauthorized maneuver to rescue his partner and prevent the collision. He is summoned into the presence of his commanding general (Mark Goddard). Because the original choice has fallen ill (Sedition sabotage), West is ordered to serve as mission pilot for the Jupiter Mission, commanded by Professor John Robinson (William Hurt). West is reluctant to commit to a mission he sees as an expedition instead of a necessity, until Robinson tells him the Earth is dying, and has only a few years left before people start dying, big time. Robinson addresses a news conference as final launch preparations are being completed. Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman) has certified the cryogenic systems, but Dr. Judy Robinson (Heather Graham) is not satisfied with them yet and hasn't given them her own approval as mission physician. Robinson says their ship is equipped with hyperdrive, but hyperspace—which exists beneath normal space—is uncharted and exit vectors are random. For this reason, the ship will fly at sub-light for ten years to reach Alpha Prime, a habitable planet identified as an objective for colonization, contact the scientific group already there and proceed with construction of a hyperspace gate that will allow ships to pass from Earth to Alpha Prime in seconds. (The exact location of Alpha Prime is not identified, but it has to be within 9.9 light years - Earth can't wait 10 relativistic years, only 10 objective years. It may very well be Alpha Centauri, with the ship flying at half the speed of light.Of course, this movie, like the series, is not very scientifically accurate) Due to Global Sedition, there is a concern about more sabotage, and about getting the project completed first so that Sedition cannot colonize the planet before the free peoples of Earth do it first. Two reporters (Angela Cartwright, Marta Kristen) are among those questioning Robinson, one of them inquiring how Robinson's children feel about the mission. He expresses confidence that they are excited about it. Penny Robinson (Lacey Chabert) is not happy about being shipped off to Alpha Prime, away from her friends, the mall, her neighbourhood. She considers whether to spend a year's worth of allowance at the mall. Security has had to bring her home lately. Will Robinson (Jack Johnson) is disappointed at his father not showing up for his science fair entry judging. His experiment had to do with time travel theory. In his frustration, he tampers with the visuals of the phone call by his school's principal, Mrs. Cartwright (June Lockhart), to talk to Mrs. Robinson (Mimi Rogers) about Will's schoolwork. Smith's attempt to sabotage the mission—harming the pilot signed for the flight—went awry because of West being signed to replace him. Smith's superiors order him to try again. He demands more money, and so his superior grants it. Smith hides inside "another crate of medical supplies" being loaded, then sabotages the robot with programming to destroy key systems 16 hours after launch. After Smith changes the programming, he reports in while still inside the ship, and his superiors set off a device in his Sedition implant, knocking him out until several hours after lift off. Obviously, they decided not to pay him the extra money. Judy is finally satisfied at the status of the cryogenic systems, and the countdown proceeds. The Robinson party is put into suspension, West supervises the lift off: the Jupiter 1 lifts off from its tower over Houston, and once in space, is jettisoned, exposing the Jupiter 2, which engages its engines and proceeds. West ensures the ship is in its trajectory to escape the solar system and fly to Alpha Prime, then submits himself to the cryogenic sleep. Smith awakens just before the 16-hour mark, discovers he was launched with the ship, and cannot stop the robot's rampage, which puts the ship off course; Smith awakens the sleepers who try to evade the robot's blasts while the men try to disable it; once it is stopped by Will hacking into it, Maureen notices that Judy is missing: her capsule malfunctioned. West discovers Smith is Sedition, and only lets him live if he saves Judy. While Smith is trying to revive Judy, John and West open the viewport, discover they are very close to the sun and try to thrust out of its gravity as the sun grows ominously in the viewport. The only solution other than dying in the sun's heat is to use the hyperdrive. When they exit hyperdrive, they are in unknown space, and the computer cannot match the stars with any star map. Will works on reprogramming the robot. They discover an Earth ship, the Proteus, apparently abandoned, orbiting a desolate planet, and an alien ship nearby; the Jupiter docks with the Proteus. John, West, Judy, Smith and the Robot (acting as Will's eyes, ears, voice and motion) board the Earth ship, and playing back a log, discover Jeb Walker was the captain, and it has been years since the Jupiter mission was lost. Walker led one of several missions to search for the Robinsons. John discovers that hyperspace has now been mapped for the whole galaxy and uploads the file to the Jupiter 2. They discover a life form, which they nickname the Blarp (CGI-animated life form), and it is eventually adopted by Penny, but they also discover a metallic spider-like form in the thousands, which menaces them. They barely escape, though the Robot has to be left to defend the retreating party. Smith, however, has kept the programming module from the robot found aboard the derelict. Maureen is studying the remnant of the creature to determine its nature. Smith also took a bite from one of the spiders. The spiders are on the Jupiter and are cutting through the hull; Maureen says it may respond to heat, so by remote control, they fire the derelict's engines, creating a heat source that the creatures fly to. Don then uses the Jupiter's missiles to destroy the derelict, against Robinson's orders. The destructive wave, however, sends the Jupiter into a crash course onto the planet's surface; the collision puts the chariot and pod out of commission. On the planet, while repairs are undertaken, John and Don investigate a strange energy field, inside of which they discover that it is several years in the future. John and Don meet a 30-ish man, and eventually realize he's Will Robinson. Building on his science fair entry from 2058, Will has used the atomic pile from the Jupiter 2 to build a new time portal. He intends to keep the Jupiter mission from failing. Smith convinces young Will to go there after his father, then plugs the programming module into Will's robot, making it Smith's servant; Don, John and Will are confined, to be killed if they make a wrong move. Smith also meets his future self: "Spider Smith", a hooded figure with a black face. Older Will now asks out loud how the women really died since the spiders hadn't shown up since—he suspected it was Smith all along. The men had disappeared (into the energy field) and never returned. Spider Smith is ready to lay eggs, and intends to go through a time vortex that Will has built to try to return to Earth and stop the Jupiter mission. Meanwhile, Will convinces the robot to overcome Smith's programming module and start helping them; Spider Smith falls into the rim of the time vortex and is destroyed; John sends Don, Will and young Smith back to the Jupiter 2. When the Jupiter tries to lift off from the planet (which is disintegrating because of Will's time vortex), it is hit by debris and destroyed. Adult Will sends John through the time vortex to a few minutes earlier, onto the Jupiter; adult Will greets the younger version of his family. Because the Jupiter has insufficient fuel to make escape velocity, John directs Don to fly the ship down through the disintegrating planet and out the other side, a maneuver which is successful. The planet, however, does not merely explode, but a lingering effect from adult Will's time device causes a black hole to develop. They escape by plugging in the coordinates for Alpha Prime and heading into hyperspace as the movie ends. According to writer Akiva Goldsman, the never produced sequel would have featured the arrival of the Jupiter 2 at Alpha Prime, but this never came to be, leaving this version of the Robinson family still lost in space with no resolution, despite the spinoff books featuring more adventures in the film's universe. Several sequences were cut out of this film, including the presence of multiple time bubbles and a version of Blarp from the future, who joins the Jupiter 2 with the younger Blarp at the end. Although these scenes were filmed, they were only included in the various novelizations which expanded and sometimes simplified the already complex plot. Gallery File:LIS_01.jpg|Major West to the Rescue File:LIS_03.jpg|Jupiter Mission Press Conference File:LIS_04.jpg|Penny Vision File:LIS_05.jpg|Dr. Smith's Holographic Meeting File:LIS_06.jpg|Houston, Earth File:LIS_07.jpg|Jupiter 1 Prepares for Launch File:LIS_08.jpg|Robinsons in Cryo-Stasis File:LIS_11.jpg|Robot Attack File:LIS_12.jpg|What Was the Price?! File:LIS_13.jpg|Where Are We? File:LIS_14.jpg|Docking With the Proteus File:LIS_15.jpg|Give Me An Excuse File:LIS_16.jpg|Exploring the Proteus File:LIS_17.jpg|Holographic Interface File:LIS_18.jpg|A Million Bucks of Weaponry File:LIS_19.jpg|Time Bubble File:LIS_20.jpg|Re-Built Robot File:LIS_21.jpg|I Am a God! File:LIS_22.jpg|Back in Time File:LIS_23.jpg|Targeting Alpha Prime File:LIS_24.jpg|Cool! spacesuits.jpg hqdefault (10).jpg images (67).jpg still-of-gary-oldman-in-lost-in-space-(1998).jpg bcf3e8a6782a31c09ec66c1c6175b5cb--space-tv-lost-in-space.jpg 645464-lostinspdh1sm.jpg Cast * Gary Oldman as Dr. Zachary Smith / Spider Smith * William Hurt as Prof. John Robinson * Matt LeBlanc as Maj. Don West * Mimi Rogers as Dr. Maureen Robinson * Heather Graham as Dr. Judy Robinson * Lacey Chabert as Penny Robinson * Jack Johnson as Will Robinson * Jared Harris as Older Will Robinson * Mark Goddard as General * Lennie James as Jeb Walker * Marta Kristen as Reporter #1 * June Lockhart as Principal Cartwright * Edward Fox as Businessman * Adam Sims as Lab Technician * Angela Cartwright as Reporter #2 * John Sharian as Noah Freeman * Abigail Canton as Annie Tech * Richard Saperstein as Global Sedition attack pilot * Dick Tufeld as Rambler-Crane Series Robot (voice) * Gary Hecker as Blarp (voice) * William Todd-Jones as Spider Smith (Shadow) * Kamay Lau as Space Cadet Reporter (uncredited) Memorable Quotes "All right, last one to kill a bad guy buys the beers!" -Major west, while engaging in combat with the Sedition Raiders "If the family won't come to the science fair, bring the science fair to the family."''' "Show-off." -Will and Judy, after stopping the Robot's attack "I love you, wife." - Will to Judy before entering the Time Bubble. "Have you noticed that you take the opposite position to whatever I say?" "'Course I do, we're married." ''-''John and Maureen, discussing Smith "Ouch... Could he be cuter? I don't think so." "Breathe, Penny. Breathe." -Penny and Will while Penny's talking to her diary about West "A million bucks worth of weaponry here... and I'd like to trade it all back for a lousy can of Raid." -West, while upgrading his gun to battle the spiders "Ah yes, that explains this warm fuzzy feeling whenever I think about baseball... Strike you're out!" -Robot "Nice girl, pretty girl, nice." -Blarp, repeating Penny's words to John "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!" -Robot "AHH!" "Stop!" "Right!" "Left!" "Dive!" "Let me drive!" -Penny, Will, Maureen, Judy, John, and Major West while facing a massive rock face on their escape from the crumbling planet. References * United Global Space Force * Hyperdrive * Global Sedition * Bubble Fighter * Eagle One * Alpha Prime * Silicon Graphics Corporation * Houston Middle School * Captain Mike Daniels * Jupiter 1 * Jupiter 2 * Cryo-Stasis * Proteus * Space Spider Crew *Angus Bickerton - Special Effects Supervisor Category:Lost in Space (1998 Movie) Category:Films and Specials